While I really enjoy reading fiction and non-fiction books about submarines in WWII you would have had to hog tie me to serve aboard one, and I was a Marine. Perhaps one reason why I feel this way is because of all the different types of organizations in the U.S. armed forces, submariners had the highest casualty rate.
This is a gripping novel by a man who spent years serving aboard submarines in WW II. Commander Beach combines in one novel many true stories from that war. For example, there was a serious problem with the torpedoes our submarines used and the men in those subs knew it. But the naval bureaucrats in Washington who ran the unit which developed them refused to acknowledge it. Eventually, the people in the Pacific took it on their own---at great risk of being relieved from command---and, as is depicted in the book, proved beyond a doubt there was a problem and got it fixed. In fact, one movie,staring John Wayne is based on this problem. You have to wonder about people who send men into combat with weapons which don't work. I had my own experiences with this while in the Marines and in Viet Nam. I bet the servicemen and women of today do too.
"Run Silent, Run Deep" also became a movie of the same name, staring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. While it was a good movie, Hollywood screenwriters took such liberty with it---as if that was a surprise---that Commander Beach did not think well of the movie.
During WW II, my mother's mother ran a boarding house in Sydney, Australia. One day a week was open house for American servicemen. My mother, a teenager then, recalled many U.S. submariners who came to sit, eat, talk and relax, often before and after missions. She once told me she'd say to them, "See you when you return," but some would say, "We're not coming back from this one." And all too often their submarines would be reported overdue and missing. She also remembers her mother receiving many letters from the mothers and wives of these men, thanking her for opening her house to their sons and husbands.
This is a gripping novel by a man who spent years serving aboard submarines in WW II. Commander Beach combines in one novel many true stories from that war. For example, there was a serious problem with the torpedoes our submarines used and the men in those subs knew it. But the naval bureaucrats in Washington who ran the unit which developed them refused to acknowledge it. Eventually, the people in the Pacific took it on their own---at great risk of being relieved from command---and, as is depicted in the book, proved beyond a doubt there was a problem and got it fixed. In fact, one movie,staring John Wayne is based on this problem. You have to wonder about people who send men into combat with weapons which don't work. I had my own experiences with this while in the Marines and in Viet Nam. I bet the servicemen and women of today do too.
"Run Silent, Run Deep" also became a movie of the same name, staring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. While it was a good movie, Hollywood screenwriters took such liberty with it---as if that was a surprise---that Commander Beach did not think well of the movie.
During WW II, my mother's mother ran a boarding house in Sydney, Australia. One day a week was open house for American servicemen. My mother, a teenager then, recalled many U.S. submariners who came to sit, eat, talk and relax, often before and after missions. She once told me she'd say to them, "See you when you return," but some would say, "We're not coming back from this one." And all too often their submarines would be reported overdue and missing. She also remembers her mother receiving many letters from the mothers and wives of these men, thanking her for opening her house to their sons and husbands.
